over revving, ideling problems

[chris a4 avant]

two weeks after i picked up my new a4 avant 2.o tdi s line in dec 2006 i experienced a problem with the car losing power in third gear, it would then rev round to the rev limiter, the only way i could stop this was to turn the engine off.

i took the car back to the dealer and they found a problem with the lamber probe, they deleted the fault and gave me the car back,

a few days later it happened again so i gave the car back again, the same fault appeared on the diagnostics so they then changed the lamber probe, whilst out on the test drive the same thing happened to the mechanic.

they then decided to change the tandum pump because there was fuel leaking into the sump, this cured the over revving but then the car would struggle to start in the mornings and when it finally did it would missfire, so i took the car back again.

to try and cure this problem they changed the injectors, the cylinder head, the ECU and i believe the injector seals, i then get a phone call saying they found a strange colour fuel in the car and asked me what i put in it, i had only put two tanks of diesel in the car from tescos, my dealer then sent a fuel samole to a testing company and the result on the report read sudgested to be bio diesel.

they then told me i had put biodiesel in the car which you cannot do and invallidated my warranty, so they invoiced me for £6500 for the work they had done to the car and that the car was fixed and once i had payed i could have the car back.

after speaking with a solicitor he advised me to pay the money beause they would also charge me for storage costs as the car had been inpounded so i payed and got them to sign a letter saying that we are going to dispute it and take the matter futher and i also took a fuel sample from the car.

I picked the car up and would you believe it, it was missfiring and would not start properly (ofcourse i went a bit mad).

I then employed a mechanical engineer to inspect the car and audis report
He said audis fuel report was not worth the paper its written on and put me on to b.p and in his view there was no way biodiesel could cause the kind of problems the car has experienced. This obviously cost me alot of money.

i then took the car to a different audi dealership and they found the starting problem within a day, it was a software issue but they still couldnt find the problem with the missfiring, they said i would have to take the car back to camberley audi as it was their problem.

my solicitor wrote camberley audi a letter and they said the car left them working fine and that this was a new problem and that i should bring the car back as they would investigate and rectify the fault under warranty.

So i took the car back again and took another fuel sample out of the car.
This time they changed the flywheel ?, they said it was running fine i picked the car up and it was still experiencing the same problem.

By this time i new what biodiesel was and had my first fuel sample tested by B.P it came back as 3.8% biodiesel which falls within the specification of BS.EN.590 DIESEL, B.P also informed me that the tesco garage i got my fuel from was tested 3 months before and had a percentage of 4.7%.

i then spoke to the testing company that camberley audi had the fuel tested by and asked them why their fuel report did not show a percentage or quantity of biodiesel.
They said it was because they didnt have the equipment to test and show percentages, so they sent me a letter to that effect.

my solicitor then sent another letter to their solicitor with the facts which they seemed to ignore and refused to refund me.

i drove the car for about 400 miles and would you believe it two weeks ago the car lost power and then revved round to the rev limiter, i had to turn the engine of to stop it (the same problem that they accused me of causing with bio diesel).

The car went back again and the problem was the tandum pump again and they also noticed after stripping the engine down that one of the pistons was damaged, so they changed the engine and the tandum pump they havnt tried charging me this time, they say the dandum pump was faulty and i dont no what was wrong with the piston. so i will be employing the engineer again to find out what was wrong and so on.

I picked the car back up today and it is running perfectly to this day 03/11/2007 my £30.000 audi has covered 2200 miles since the 08/12/2006 and has cost me a futher £10.000 thats not including the solicitor because it looks like im goin to have to take them to court to get my money back ( and i will go that far because i have not put biodiesel in the car)

I have had 6 different courtsy cars all audis and i have put tesco diesel in all of them and they have experienced no problems.

They have also changed the whole DVD SAT NAV because i couldnt get the dvd out and they have also changed the ipod connection twice because of problems with that aswell.

Your opinions would be most apreciated.

[T-sport]

Wow Chris what a shocking story !!

I cant beleive Audi were so incompetant with everything..

I think your totally within your rights to receive full reinbursement and compensation of some kind for your troubles..

Thanks for reporting the issue and hopefully none of our members will have to suffer like you have...

Good luck with the court action and let us know howyou get on

[ean36t]

I'm so sorry to hear what you had to go through.

Have you contacted Audi HQ directly enclosing all the service invoices/ solicitor's letters/ fuel reports and a diary of all the trouble you have had to go through?

I would go to the extent of suggesting that the car is clearly a lemon and in the interest of all future owners (hopefully none), it should be destroyed by Audi (or at least returned to the lab for some 'Vorsprung durch Technik')!!!

[a8 tech]

I wouldnt say the car was a lemon as some of these issues could be fixed first time,i would say it wasnt dealt with correctly and i am suprised at the dealers in question.Sorry to hear of your problems